Book III

Summary

Europa’s father, Agenor, threatens Cadmus with exile if
he does not find Europa. Cadmus tries and fails. He can’t go home,
so he prays to Apollo about where he should live. Apollo says he
a pristine heifer will lead him to a place where he will establish
a city. Apollo’s prophecy is born out. However, Cadmus’s men encounter
an enormous serpent, which kills them. Cadmus slays the serpent
and, at Minerva’s request, buries its teeth in the ground. Immediately,
a group of belligerent men emerge from the land and begin to kill
each other. The five remaining men agree to live in peace, and Thebes
is established.

Cadmus’s household is plagued. While hunting, his grandson, Actaeon,
stumbles upon Diana bathing in her sacred grove. Diana is so offended
that she transforms Actaeon into a deer, and Actaeon’s own hunting
dogs kill him. Semele, Cadmus’s daughter, is pregnant with Jupiter’s
child. Juno, filled with rage at yet another dalliance of Jupiter’s,
disguises herself as an old woman and convinces Semele to ask Jupiter
to make love to her with all his power as a god, just as he makes
love to Juno. Semele gets Jupiter to promise her an unspecified
gift. When she makes her request, Jupiter cannot go back on his word.
He makes love to her with all his power. She cannot withstand it,
and she dies. Jupiter brings their son, Bacchus, to full term in
his thigh.

The scene changes. Jupiter and Juno banter about which
gender enjoys sex more. Jupiter says women do, and Juno says men
do. They decide to ask Tiresias, who reportedly has experienced
life as both a man and woman. Tiresias agrees with Jupiter. In her
anger, Juno strikes Tiresias blind. Jupiter compensates Tiresias
by giving him supernatural foresight. Ovid records Tiresias’s first
prediction: that Narcissus will live a long life as long as he does
not know himself. These cryptic words were born out when Narcissus,
who had rejected all would-be lovers, fell in love with his own
reflection.

Ovid returns to the story of Cadmus’s family. Pentheus
tries to persuade his family and others not to worship Bacchus.
No one is convinced, but Pentheus stands firm. Not even Acoetes,
a convert to the worship of Bacchus, can change his mind. Pentheus
threatens to make Acoetes into an example by killing him. Pentheus
sets out for Mount Cithaeron to spy on the rites of Bacchus. When
he arrives, his own aunt and mother mistake him for an animal and
hunt him. His aunt, Autonoe, rips off his arms, and his mother tears
off his head and lets out a shout of victory.

Analysis

This book begins auspiciously, with the founding of Thebes.
However, divine revenge soon takes center stage. The gods punish
nearly every major character for a crime, regardless of whether
the crime was committed wittingly or unwittingly. Diana punishes
Actaeon for accidentally stumbling upon her when she is naked. Juno
punishes Semele for her love affair with Jupiter. She also punishes
Tiresias with blindness for agreeing with Jupiter. And Bacchus punishes Pentheus
for failing to worship him. By focusing on the theme of revenge,
Ovid invites comparisons with Virgil’s Aeneid, which
portrays Aeneas’s quest to establish a city, and Juno’s resulting
wrath. Ovid outdoes Virgil, whose sole villain was Juno. In Ovid’s
account, three divine figures damn the household of Cadmus and the
founding of Thebes: Diana, Juno, and Bacchus.

Each act of revenge is accompanied by an ironic twist
at the expense of the victim. Actaeon, a hunter, becomes the hunted.
The reversal is completed when Actaeon’s own dogs tear him apart. Semele
is killed by sex, the very act that drew her and Jupiter together.
She is slain by her lover’s overwhelming prowess, and she requests
her own manner of death. Tiresias extensive knowledge causes his
blindness. Narcissus, who has rejected all suitors, is rejected
by himself. He becomes both the object and the
subject of spurned love. Pentheus’s death is ironic for three reasons.
First, his threat to kill Acoetes is turned against him when he
himself is killed for impiety. Second, Bacchus’s worshipers mistake
Pentheus for an animal—ironic, considering that Pentheus is not
an animal or even a transformed animal, as are many of the characters
in the poem. Finally, despite his refusal to worship Bacchus, Pentheus
becomes a central figure in a worship rite, as he is sacrificed
at the hands of his mother and aunt.